Dr. Rochon obtained her Ph.D. in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University, where her doctoral dissertation was on sentence comprehension impairments in Alzheimer's Disease. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Moss Rehab Hospital (Philadelphia, PA), where she worked with Dr. Myrna Schwartz and colleagues. At Moss, she continued her studies of language comprehension impairments in Alzheimer's Disease, in addition to working on a large project designed to evaluate a new treatment ("mapping therapy") for individuals with nonfluent aphasia. Previous to joining the Department of Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto, Dr. Rochon was Silverman Scientist in the Kunin-Lunenfeld Clinical Research Unit and the Department of Communication Disorders at Baycrest in Toronto. Dr. Rochon is a Senior Scientist and member of the Communication Research Team at Toronto Rehab. Dr. Rochon is also an Associate Member of the Heart and Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery.

Professional Interest

Dr. Rochon's research and teaching interests relate to the theory, assessment and treatment of aphasia, dementia and related disorders. Research interests lie in identifying the nature and components of linguistic and cognitive impairments subsequent to brain damage, and in developing new treatment approaches for language impairments in aphasia. In addition, she is interested in language processes in normal aging.

Current Research

Ongoing studies in Dr. Rochon's lab are designed to better characterize the nature and extent of language comprehension and production impairments in Alzheimer's disease and primary progressive aphasia (PPA). In a longitudinal study that is investigating the nature of the connected speech impairment in PPA, Dr. Rochon and collaborators are also using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tenser imaging (DTI) to examine typical patterns of progression of pathology in the brain and to specify further the abnormalities that characterize the syndromes.

Other work involves the development and the assessment of new treatments for language impairments for patients who have had strokes. In addition, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Dr. Rochon and collaborators are researching the neural processing characteristics associated with changes in naming performance as a function of different treatment regimens for naming impairments in aphasia.

Research projects are funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), and Heart and Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery (HSFCPSR).